| Book Review | Environmental History, 12.2

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| Book Review | Environmental History, 12.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

In the Company of Crows and Ravens. By John M. Marzluff and Tony Angell. Foreword by Paul Erhlich. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005. xx + 400 pp. Includes appendix, illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Cloth $30.00.

The crow's stamp on human culture is unsurpassed by any other nonhuman species: For centuries crows have lent their stark forms and mystifying characters to human expression. We "eat crow" when we are wrong, we measure distance "as the crow flies," and use "crowbars" to pry things apart. "Jim Crow" laws mar United States history and we name our rock bands, sports teams, food products, and alcohol after them. In late October, their forms haunt our lawns and houses as symbols for Halloween. Their appeal lies in their intelligence, sociability, language, and family life; they learn quickly from experience and convey their knowledge to each other. They engage in complicated social rituals and, like homo sapiens, develop regional dialects and behavioral cultures. But it is not just their appeal that makes them worthy of study. Because of their coevolutionary relationship with humans, their preservation and protection also argues for the same kind of relationship with other species. Human influences both on the cultural and biological evolution of all species should convince us that care should be taken to understand and respect the Homo sapiens' stamp upon the earth.

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